For Pigs the Bell Tolls
by Bando26
Summary: Princess Peach invites Mario to go to a bed and breakfast in a mysterious town, but they are surprised to find out that everyone there is being turned into a pig! What can Mario and Peach do to avoid being turned into pigs? -Finished-
1. Bed and Breakfast

The rain poured off of Mario and Luigi's roof. Inside, Mario and Luigi sat on the floor in their living room, working together on a puzzle.

Luigi held the box lid in his hands, studying the picture on the cover. The picture showed that the completed puzzle was supposed to be a photo of a bunch of kittens in a basket, but right now, all they had finished was some of the border of the puzzle.

Mario was getting frustrated. "I could probably make most of these pieces fit if I cut them with scissors."

"No," Luigi scolded him, knocking the scissors out of Mario's hands, "that's cheating. Don't cut up my puzzle!"

"But this way is taking too long!"

"No it isn't. Look." Luigi completed the face of a tiny orange kitten on the floor in front of him.

"That's a stupid kitten," Mario said.

"No it isn't," Luigi argued. "It's cute. Look at its eyes."

"The cat's eyes look like barf," Mario said, crossing his arms.

"Come on," Luigi said. "Just help me work on this puzzle."

"I hate these kittens," Mario complained.

"We'll be done in a few hours if we keep at it," Luigi said as he matched two more pieces together, forming the small paw of the gray kitten.

Mario turned his head to the side, closing his eyes defiantly.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

"I'll get it!" Mario said, taking this opportunity to get away from the puzzle. He jumped up from the floor, ran over to the door, and looked through the peephole. "It's Peach!" Mario eagerly opened the door.

"Mario, guess what!" Peach asked, elegantly.

"What?" Mario asked.

"I think we should go to a bed and breakfast!" She pointed at the front of a brochure. "This brochure says there's one over in Twilight Town! A weekend of love-filled nights under the twilight sky... Doesn't that sound romantic?"

"What?" Mario groaned. "Why?"

"I think we need to spend a little more time together!"

Mario looked over at Luigi, who was dutifully putting more pieces together. "Okay, fine."

Peach was thrilled. "All right! Let's go!"

"When?" Mario asked, looking down at his watch.

"Now! Come on!" Peach pulled Mario out of the house, through the rain, and into her carriage.

"Bye, Mario!" Luigi waved from the floor.


	2. Alarming News

As Mario and Peach stepped out of the carriage, Peach realized that Twilight Town looked nothing like she had in mind. "The sky...gross!" The sky was a brownish-grayish-red color...as if the sky were burning and leaving soot instead of clouds. The huge moon hovered eerily high overhead. The ground was parched and dusty. "This isn't what I had in mind at all..." Peach looked very disappointed and wished that the carriage wasn't already pulling away.

"Oh, it's all right. At least I'm here!" said Mario as he showed her his biggest smile.

A few dark, leafless trees stood in the middle of the small village. Crows sat on the bare branches. The houses were shrouded in shadow. Except for a few prickly bushes, there was nothing but dirt on the ground. Poorly-constructed fences enclosed gardens made up of dead plants.

A dark, sad-looking figure dressed in rags and a large hood that shaded his face approached Mario and Peach. "Go away!"

Peach was shocked. "I _beg_ your _pardon_!"

"No!" the shadowy local said. "Leave! You'll be cursed, just like the rest of us!"

"Cursed?" Mario asked, startled.

"What do you mean, _cursed_?" Peach asked inquisitively. Suddenly, **_DONG!_**, a bell tolled, and **_POP!_** the villager turned into a pig.

"Oh my _goodness_!" Mario blurted. He looked around, and noticed there were several other little pigs roaming around the town.

A ruffled, sad old man walked up to greet Peach and Mario. "Hello," he said, "my name is Dour. I'm the mayor of Twilight Town."

"Hello, Mayor Dour," Peach acknowledged him. "Tell me what the heck is going on!"

"Not here," he said. "Let us go to my house."

They walked into his small little house. It had only one room.

"What's going on?" Mario asked the mayor.

"Ahhh..." he droned, "this town has had a curse put on it."

"Mamma-mia!" Mario cried.

"A curse?" Peach gasped. "Oh my goodness!"

"A monster inside of Creepy Steeple has laid a curse on this town," Dour explained. "Whenever the bell is rung, one of us turns into a pig!"

"That's awful!" Peach said. "Mario, we've got to get out of here!"

"Our carriage left already!" Mario exclaimed.

"Awww, that's right!" Peach shouted indignantly at herself. I told the carriage driver to come back tomorrow afternoon."

"Ahhh..." Mayor Dour droned, "You'll surely be turned into pigs by then."

Peach turned to the mayor. "What can we do? I'll do anything to avoid being turned into a piggy!"

"Well," the mayor said, "the only thing that there is to do..." Dour paused for effect.

"Yes?" Peach asked expectantly.

"...is to go to Creepy Steeple and destroy the monster!"

"Okay," Peach said, "So where's the monster?"

"Creepy Steeple is east of town, on the other side of Twilight Trail."

"Let's go there and do that!" Mario approved.

"All right," Peach agreed. "Let's just not get my dress dirty."


	3. Heading to Creepy Steeple

Peach and Mario exited the mayor's house and were walking to the east gate of Twilight Town when a hooded, tired-looking woman slowly intercepted them. "I'm so hungry. My kids are starving. Please...give me something to eat." Mario handed her his hot dog. "Oh, thank you very much." She turned toward her house, but suddenly, **_DONG!_** the bell tolled again, and, that's right, **_POP!_** the woman turned into a pig.

"Oh my _goodness_!" Peach screamed. "I hope we aren't next!"

"Yeah," Mario said. "Better her than me."

The two reached the exit gate, but the gatekeeper wouldn't allow them to pass. "I'm sorry, but it's really dangerous out there. You have to get the mayor's permission to exit the town. Get the mayor to come here."

"Well, fine!" Peach said. They started to walk back, but halfway there, Mario and Peach heard the bell again. **_DONG!_**

"Oh no!" Mario said.

Peach frowned. "I wonder who it was this time. Oh no, I hope it wasn't the mayor!"

But surely enough, Mario and Peach realized upon entering Dour's house that he was now a pig.

"Oh no!" Mario said. "Now we can't get permission to exit town!"

"Well," Peach said, picking the mayor up, "this will have to be proof enough that we seriously need out of this town."

Peach and Mario exited the mayor's house, and **_DONG!_** the bell tolled again.

"Holy cow!" Mario said, digging wax out of his ear.

They reached the gate to see that the gatekeeper too had been turned into a pig.

Peach set the mayor down next to the gatekeeper. "Well, given the circumstances, this is horrible, but it's great news for us!" She and Mario slipped right through the gate.

* * *

They both walked together through Twilight Trail. Peach carried the brochure and read it as they traveled. "Hmmm..." she said. "According to the brochure, it is always twilight here. That's creepyperpetual twilight. Isn't that creepy, Mario?"

"Yep."

"Imagine it never being sunny. Never running through the sunlight. That's sad." Peach looked upset. "Hmmm... perhaps I should have read this pamphlet more carefully...I just saw the words 'bed and breakfast', immediately thought of you, and got the carriage to take us both here. What a terrible idea."

"Yep."

The farther they walked from Twilight Town, the darker the sky grew. The trail eventually went into a forest. Everything got even darker as the trees blocked the light, but it wasn't too dark for Mario and Peach to see.

Peach began to grow worried. "Mario, I'm scared. I don't want to become a pig!"

Mario shrugged. "Don't worry. You'd probably be a very attractive pig."

* * *

Finally, Peach and Mario reached Creepy Steeple. It was made of old-looking gray bricks. The gate was closed, and the fence was impossible to climb over.

"How do we get in?" Mario asked Peach. "Maybe there's a secret entrance at the bottom of that well over there," Mario pointed to the small well outside of the fence, "but if there isn't, then we wouldn't be able to get out of the well. How the heck do we get on the other side of this fence?"

"I don't know..." Peach said. She walked up to the gate, pushed it open, and laughed. "The gate wasn't locked, just closed!"

She walked through into the courtyard, and Mario followed. The courtyard probably used to be a large garden, but there was nothing here but dirt, a few dried-out weeds, and a cracked cement path. Peach walked up to the door, started to knock on it, but hesitated. "Should I knock, Mario?"

Mario didn't know whether it was better to say yes or no, so he just shrugged a little and muttered, "I dunno."

"Well, thanks, Mario. That's a big help." Peach creaked the door open slowly.

"Watch out, Peach. Let me go first." Mario entered the steeple, and Peach followed him.

The inside of the steeple was surprisingly large. Moonlight shined in through the stained glass windows. A bunch of Boos floated around inside the steeple. Some were big, some were small. Mario and Peach walked past them, then slowly walked up the stone spiral staircase, anxious to see what monster awaited them at the top.


	4. The Master of Magic

When Mario and Peach reached the top of the staircase, they were surprised to see that there was nothing at the top.

"What do we do?" Peach asked.

Mario looked all the way around him, then up at the ceiling. "Oh, a trapdoor!" A trapdoor was built into the ceiling. Mario tried to jump to reach it, but despite his incredible jumping abilities, he couldn't reach.

"Mario, let me climb up on your shoulders," Peach requested. Mario happily obliged. Peach climbed up on Mario's shoulders, and could reach the trapdoor to pull it down. She pulled herself up through the trapdoor into the ceiling, then reached back down to help pull Mario up. "Gee, Mario, you need to lay off the pasta!" She struggled, but they were both finally up.

This room was very dark. Mario fumbled around for a light switch. Peach found a thin cord dangling from the ceiling, and pulled it. The dim lights flickered on.

A small ghost-like monster, perhaps only two or three feet tall, stood in the corner. He looked like a tiny man with a sheet dangled over him, kind of like how kids dress up as ghosts for Halloween. Except this was no sheet. This was real. He had eyes and a mouth, he had on a blue party hat with red polka dots, and a blue bowtie. This was one incredibly bizarre creature. "Hey, go away! You're interrupting my 'me' time!"

"You..." Mario asked the monster, "are you the monster?"

"Yes, I most certainly am! I am Doopliss, master of magic and spells and stuff!"

"Oh, I bet he's the one who's turned the kind people of Twilight Town into pigs!" Peach accused.

Mario said forcefully, pointing a finger at Doopliss, "Why are you turning the people into pigs?"

"They're all so depressing and boring and dimwitted all the time," Doopliss said. "And so I thought, instead of wallowing in gloom, they might as well wallow in mud!" He started laughing. "And now they're pigs, get it?"

"That's mean!" Peach gasped.

Doopliss was shocked. "No, no, come on, it's fun!" He turned to Mario, and said, "Would you care to join me?"

Mario looked over at Peach, who was shaking her head. Mario said, "NO!"

"Turn those pigs back into people, you freak!" Peach demanded.

"What's this?" Doopliss asked, taken aback, "are you turning _against_ me?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Mario said.

"_Nobody _turns against Doopliss! Fine! If you don't want me to have fun turning people into pigs, then I'll just have to find another way to have fun. Hmmm... I know the _perfect_ way to have fun."

A purple ray of light shot from Doopliss' eyes, scanning Mario. Then, suddenly, Doopliss magically transformed into an exact duplicate of Mario. Then, Doopliss pulled the cord, and the lights went out.

Peach fumbled through the dark for the cord. Even though she couldn't see anyway, she closed her eyes so that the darkness didn't feel so uninviting.

When she found the cord, pulled it, and the lights came on, Doopliss and Mario were already out of the room. Peach was all by herself. She suspected that Doopliss had taken Mario out of the room. "Mario, where are you?" She was starting to get worried.


	5. Showdown

She carefully lowered herself down through the trapdoor. "Mario?" she hollered. She cautiously went down the spiral staircase. "Mario?" She exited the front door into the cold dark air. There, in the dimly-lit courtyard, she saw two Marios! Of course, it was Mario and Doopliss, but they both looked exactly the same. Unfortunately, Peach couldn't tell them apart. Mario and Doopliss stood exactly alike. "Okay," she said. "Which one of you is the real Mario?"

"I am!" Mario and Doopliss said at the same time, with the same voice.

"Don't listen to him, Peach!" Mario shouted. "_I'm_ the real Mario!"

"No, don't believe him!" Doopliss said, exactly as Mario would say it. "_I'm_ the real Mario. He's an impostor!"

"Nuh-uh!" Mario was shouting. "Here, Peach, look at my ID!" Mario whipped out his wallet from his back pocket and showed her his license.

"What? No, that's mine!" Doopliss pulled an identical wallet out of _his_ back pocket, and showed Peach a copy of the same license.

"Ohhhhhhhhh," Peach groaned, her head swimming in confusion. "I don't know which one is the real Mario!"

"I am!" both Mario and Doopliss yelled.

Peach thought about asking a question "only the real Mario would know", but she realized that she really didn't know very many secrets about Mario.

Peach could resort to nothing else. She pointed to Mario, who was on her left. "Eenie..." She then pointed to Doopliss. "Meenie..." And she switched back over to Mario. "Miney..." And she pointed back to Doopliss. "Moe." As she sang, she switched back and forth between Mario and Doopliss. "Catch a tiger by his toe. If he hollers, let him go. Eenie..." she was pointing to Mario. She pointed to Doopliss. "Meenie..." Then back to Mario. "Miney..." and finally, she pointed to Doopliss. "Moe."

Peach ran over to Doopliss. "You're the real Mario!" She hugged him.

"Wrong-o!" Doopliss laughed as he transformed back into his true form. A purple beam shot from Doopliss' eyes, grabbed Peach, and held her in the air. Then, when the purple beam disappeared, a huge bubble surrounded her, causing her to continue hovering in the air.

"Help me, Mario!" Peach screamed, scratching and pounding on the sides of the bubble. "I can't get out!"

Mario tried to jump and reach the bubble, but it was no good. Peach was stuck a good ten feet up in the air.

"You let her down right now!" Mario requested.

"No. I like this. It's fun!" Doopliss laughed.

Mario picked up a small rock off of the ground, and threw it at the bubble. It made a noise as it bounced off. It sounded as if the bubble were made of glass, but it wasn't. Just magic.

Doopliss laughed. "Ha ha ha, you'll have to throw harder than that!"

Mario picked up a slightly larger rock, and threw it as hard as he could at the floating bubble. Again, it just bounced off.

Doopliss laughed even harder. "You'll need a lot more force to break through that thing, you silly mustache-man!"

"Mario!" Peach said, "Try it with a running start!"

Mario picked up yet another rock, stepped a few yards away, then ran full steam at the bubble and threw the rock. The rock just bounced off.

Doopliss broke out in tears, he was laughing so hard. "You're never gonna break that bubble! HA HA HA! Dumb, weak little man."

Mario picked up another rock, and threw it as hard as he could at Doopliss' face.

"OUCH!" Doopliss complained. "Why you littleI'm gonna turn you into a pig next!"

"Nooooooooooooo!" Peach yelled from her bubble.

Mario kicked some dirt into Doopliss' face. Doopliss yelled, "You stupid little nobody!"

Mario threw more rocks at Doopliss until he was knocked out. As soon as Doopliss was out, **_DONG!_** the bell tolled, and the bubble around Peach disappeared. She fell butt-first onto the soft, dirty ground. "Awww," Peach complained, "I was hoping I wouldn't get my dress dirty."

"What do we do with Doopliss?" Mario asked Peach. "Do we throw him down the well?"

"Yeah, sure," Peach said. They both picked Doopliss up, and threw him into the well.


	6. Return to Twilight Town

"Mario, thank you so much for saving me back there!" Peach thanked Mario as they traveled back through Twilight Trail.

"Hmmph," Mario grunted, turning his head away.

"What was that!" Peach asked, indignantly.

Mario refused to speak.

"Mario, what is it?" Peach asked.

"Hmmph!"

"Mario, please tell me!" Peach begged.

Mario sadly looked at Peach. "You couldn't tell that _I_ was the real Mario!"

"Oh," Peach looked at her feet. "It was really hard to tell. You both looked the same."

"I thought you loved me..." Mario said.

"Oh, I _do_ love you, Mario!" Peach said.

"Then why did you choose Doopliss?"

"I swear, he looked just like you!"

"You couldn't tell that I was the real Mario."

"I'm sorry, I thought he was you!"

"But _I'm_ me!" Mario said loudly.

"I know! You're you! I'm sorry!" Peach apologized. "Sorry sorry sorry!"

Mario got an idea. "I'll forgive you if you say 'I love you' a hundred times."

"Again? Oh, Mario, don't make me go through all that again!"

"Hmmph."

"Oh, all right!" Peach gave in. "I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you..."

* * *

When Peach and Mario returned to Twilight Town, everybody was thrilled to see them. Nobody was a pig anymore! Now, instead of pigs, there was just a bunch of depressed villagers dressed in rags.

Mayor Dour was at the front of the crowd of poor, happy villagers. "Thank you very much for saving our town! It's now a much better place."

"Oh," Mario said, "it was nothing."

"Please," Dour said, "we invite you to stay in our bed and breakfast for free! It's the _least_ we can do to thank you for saving us all!"

"What do you mean, _least_?" Mario asked, crossly. "Do you mean you _could_ do _more_?"

"Mario, please don't!" Peach begged. She turned to Dour, "I'm really sorry about this…"

Mario continued his angry rant as the crowd of villagers gasped. "So we saved your stupid lives, and you do the _least_ you have to in order to pay us back? What are you, a bunch of cheap little Goombas?" He wordlessly took his cap off, and violently shook it in the air high above his head, stomping his feet.

"Mario, don't!" Peach grabbed Mario's arm, turning him away from Dour and the crowd. She whispered, "Let's just go to the bed and breakfast."

"No!" Mario huffed quietly. "I hate these people. Stupid cheap monster people." He shouted, "Stupid cheap monster people!"

"Mario!" Peach shouted at him, "how could you talk this way to these nice villagers? They're really nice! How could you talk this way to them?"

"Hmmph."

"Come on, Mario. Let's go to the _bed_ and breakfast."

Mario smiled. "Okeydokey!" He said, to Dour and the crowd, "Uh, sorry about all that!"

Dour only raised his eyebrows.

Mario dragged Peach, hand in hand, to the bed and breakfast.


End file.
